


Old Myths

by horrorgremlin (catstuff)



Series: Once Bitten [4]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Finally another character appears, Gen, M rating might not be necessary but to be on the safe side, Mariah’s not in this one, PTSD, Set earlier than the previous 3, Transgender Characters, Vampires, chain-smoking, though after the flashbacks in in poor taste
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:13:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23656669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catstuff/pseuds/horrorgremlin
Summary: He clearly doesn’t want to talk about it, and as much as Isaac wants to know, they can’t pry too hard. Every time they try to coax something out, Grayson just lights a cigarette and changes the subject.
Series: Once Bitten [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1702981
Kudos: 1





	Old Myths

**Author's Note:**

> Content warnings: brief vampire feed/assault, PTSD from recent-past abuse.

They first see him on a rainy evening, seated on the damp sidewalk across the street in a run-down part of town, the only busker out in this weather. His head is bowed, wet hair obscuring his face; the umbrella leaning over his shoulder is clearly there for the benefit of the violin, and of the open case in his lap, empty but for a handful of coins. The song he plays is nothing special, technically or stylistically speaking, but its gentle, haunting melody cuts through the white noise of the rain and the reflected signs and headlights.

Isaac checks for cars and crosses the street in the middle of the block, stopping in front of the crumpled man just as he finishes his song. They dig in their pocket, crouch down, and drop a five-dollar bill in the violin case. The violinist looks up, his empty gray eyes not quite focusing on Isaac’s. He has a specific kind of look about him that Isaac learned to recognize many years ago, a numbed-out hunger that only leaves room for despair; they’ve always found it heart-wrenching, and this is no exception. Isaac gets the sense that he’s young, too, not just in the face, but in terms of post-life experience.

They put their hand carefully on his elbow.

“Can I get you a meal?”

The musician looks consternated, struggling to find the right response.

“I’m…” He starts to pull his arm away.

Isaac lets him recoil, holding their hands gently in front of themselves to make it clear they’re not a threat.

“I know. Me too.”

The stranger remains defensive, until Isaac opens their mouth enough to expose their fangs. Then he relaxes enough to allow Isaac to pack away his things, take him by the elbow, and lead him back to their house.

-

It takes three cups of Isaac’s emergency blood supply, two full bottles of water, and two shots of whiskey for Grayson to stop shivering and start feeling normal enough for introductions. He spends the whole time huddled on a torn-up little couch, haunted eyes studiously circling the odd living room as if he’s certain something is preparing to jump out at him and he’s always _just_ missed it.

Isaac is patient, heating each ration of blood in an ancient microwave, then pressing it into Grayson’s hands and making sure he’s _aware_ of it before letting it go. They start pouring the whiskey only after Grayson notices the bottle and points at it, and though they hate to make choices for others, they cut him off after two shots until he finishes his blood and regains some verbal capacity, at which point he apologizes for the trouble.

“No trouble at all,” Isaac says, and means it. Their schedule isn’t a problem, and they never leave someone out in the cold when they’re in a position to help.

“Sorry about the towel, too,” Grayson adds, holding out a damp, ragged towel, newly smeared with crimson after drying off his recently re-dyed hair.

Isaac accepts the towel with a wry smile. 

“You didn’t notice all the old blood stains?” 

They hang it to dry on one arm of a hat stand, beside Grayson’s soaked jacket and their own raincoat. The carpeting under the stand is dark from accumulated dripping. 

“Don’t worry, it was clean.”

Grayson shrugs. He still seems dazed, like he’d rather be anywhere but here, so instead he’s nowhere. So Isaac pours him a third shot, sets the bottle down beside the glass, and leaves him be.

As they start to walk away, though, Grayson croaks, “Hold on.” He clears his throat as Isaac turns around. “Can I smoke in here?”

They smile again, easygoing and bright. 

“Sure. Do you have…?” 

Grayson is already nodding and gesturing toward the coat stand. Isaac retrieves a damp pack of cigarettes and a lighter from his jacket. They open the box and peer inside, more curious than concerned about the cigarettes’ fate, before bringing them back to Grayson on the broken-down couch.

Grayson struggles to make a damp cigarette catch flame, shoving still-soggy hair out of his face with his wrist. Empathy strikes Isaac like a sledgehammer as they watch, feeling like a voyeur to a private moment of weakness, and they brush aside the distasteful edge of pity before it can take root. They rummage for an extra blanket and furl it gently around Grayson’s shoulders.

By now Grayson has managed to light the cigarette and his frustration has given way to something like tired acceptance.

“Can I stay here for a while?” he asks. It’s not clear whether he means for the day or for the weekend or in a strictly nowhere else to go kind of way.

“As long as you need,” Isaac answers firmly before wandering into an adjacent room.

Grayson knocks back the third shot of whiskey and returns the empty glass to the coffee table, which is actually a handsome old embossed leather trunk. Weird place, he thinks, but Isaac doesn’t seem quite right, either: they’re too kind for a vampire. Grayson pulls the blanket tighter around himself as he hits his cigarette a little too hard, then leans his head back and watches the smoke drift up toward the stuccoed ceiling. The room’s mismatched furniture and eclectic décor are oddly comforting, looking as scattered as he feels and too odd to remind him of anywhere else.

Thunder rocks the house like a cradle, and the runoff from a gutter somewhere just outside makes it sound like the rain is still pouring long after it begins to ease up. Grayson hasn’t felt this safe or peaceful in months. It isn’t long before he falls asleep on the couch.

-

When he wakes up, the world outside the house is dark in a way that lands ambiguously between eerie moonlit night and dismal overcast afternoon. He has no idea how long he’s been out cold in his wet clothes on this stranger’s couch. As he wearily rubs at his eyes, Isaac notices the shuffle of blankets and rises from their seat in front of a clunky weathered vanity across the room.

“Hey,” Grayson croaks semi-successfully. Isaac passes him an unopened bottle of water, and he breaks the seal gratefully, drinking in a rush and spilling down his chin and onto his still already damp shirt.

“Sleep okay?” Isaac asks.

Grayson wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and nurses the plastic bottle against his chest. 

“What day is it?”

“Do you have somewhere you need to be?”

He couldn’t possibly have less of anywhere to be. He shakes his head, trying to steady his breath because he accidentally thought about the reason why. His eyes dart around the room, looking for exits or checking for threats.

Isaac studies his sudden change in behavior, and adjusts their body language accordingly, taking slow, smooth steps around the trunk-table.

“Is something wrong?” they ask gently. 

Grayson gapes for words and Isaac recognizes the beginnings of a panic attack. They sit down on the other side of the small couch and remove the bottle from his limp grip, putting it down out of the way. 

“You don’t have to go if you don’t want to. I meant what I said. Stay as long as you need.”

That’s all it takes for Grayson to break down sobbing. Isaac makes confused, sympathetic noises as they haltingly wrap an arm around him. Grayson jerks away hard at first, on instinct, then changes his mind and melts boneless into Isaac’s embrace.

-

He clearly doesn’t want to talk about it, and as much as Isaac wants to know, they can’t pry too hard. Every time they try to coax something out, Grayson just lights a cigarette and changes the subject. 

“So, the fridge full of blood.” He exhales out the side of his mouth. “Is that uh, typical vampire behavior? How do you get it… into the jars?”

Isaac’s pale face flushes just a bit as they purse their lips, weighing how best to answer. 

“It’s not, really. I’m just not big on hunting for prey, so I save a little extra when… when I get the chance.” Grayson still looks curious; Isaac continues nervously. “Are you uh, hungry again? I have another if you need it.”

Grayson shakes his head. “I’m alright, thanks though.” He flicks his cigarette. “So what do you do instead of… hunt?”

_He’s in an unfamiliar dark club, as he so often is these days, human faces half-obscured amidst shifting multicolored lighting. He can’t really dance, but he can move to a rhythm. He locks eyes with a taller man amidst the crowd. He would never have imagined himself attempting this sort of maneuver six months ago, but hunger is a powerful motivator, and supernatural hypnosis helps, even if he’s never been that good at it – not that he would ever want to be._

_It’s easy to lead the stranger to the dingy club bathroom and into the corner stall, where the light barely reaches. It’s easy to pull the man down to whisper in his ear, cover his mouth, and sink his teeth into the exact spot that produces the best bleed. The hot life pooling in his stomach feels euphorically good after days without feeding at all._

_As usual, he can only handle a few greedy mouthfuls before the wave of self-disgust hits, and he shoves his victim into the toilet and bolts. It’s not like starving can even kill him. He’s just afraid of being weak again. He never wanted to be a predator._

“…never found a really workable substitute, unfortunately,” Isaac is saying as Grayson tunes back in. “But it makes a big difference to me –” They stop abruptly as they notice the fresh tears welling in Grayson’s eyes. Their tone and demeanor abruptly become lower, softer. “Hey, what’s going on with you, kid?”

Grayson shakes his head and pulls his feet up onto the couch, knees to his chest. He’s still not ready. But his cigarette is down to the butt. He reaches just far enough to stub it out and drop it over the edge of the ashtray that Isaac found laying around somewhere, despite clearly not being a smoker themselves; they’ve been nothing but polite, but Grayson catches their nose wrinkling when they get too strong a whiff. Still... Isaac catches his eyes drifting farther across the trunk’s surface. Obligingly, they reach to pull another cigarette from the pack, and light it before passing it to him.

As he takes it, he entangles a couple fingers with Isaac’s and holds them there for a moment. His eyes burn like the ember held between them, pained by the intensity of his gratitude. Then Grayson takes the cigarette, their fingers slip apart, and his eyes slide away as he takes a long drag.

They sit in something like comfortable silence until he finishes the cigarette, stubs it out, and mumbles to the ashtray, “Do you have a dry shirt I could borrow?”

“Of course,” Isaac says, already on their way to another room. They return with a faded t-shirt and a heavy flannel button-up. “Do you want me to–?”

Grayson shrugs — this last year has all but numbed him to shame — and peels his own t-shirt off without getting up from the couch. He grumbles and makes a face as he inspects his damp binder, beyond caring but not quite unabashed.

“Ahh,” Isaac says, observing, “I don’t miss that.”

Grayson’s head snaps up, and Isaac wonders if he always acts this suspicious when something catches his interest.

“You’re also…?”

“For a long time,” they say with a playful smile. “I’ve always been kind of glad I never had to bind as a human, though. I understand it can mess up your bones pretty bad if you aren’t supernaturally good at holding your shape.” Grayson just stares. Isaac kind of hopes he has more of a sense of humor when he’s not so out of it. “Sorry I don’t have a dry one to lend you.”

He can feel it in his ribs, alright. And he’s pretty sure it’s not going to dry all the way as long as he’s got it on. But he knows he’s not ready to take it off, because just the thought of doing so is enough to trip his panic reflex again. Grayson inhales slowly, then sighs it out in defeat and puts on the shirts Isaac’s brought him. He can feel the fresh t-shirt already clinging and absorbing some cold, but the flannel is thick and rough and luxurious. He nestles into it and continues to ignore the stabbing pains through his torso.

“Bet I look like shit, huh?”

“Nah,” Isaac answers easily. “You never look as bad as you think you do when you feel like shit, you know?”

Grayson scoffs. “I’ll take that bet.” He stands up slowly, stretching like he hates it, and clambers stiffly across the room to the vanity table, sitting down in front of it and leaning forward to pick apart his reflection. He makes a series of discontent faces as he attempts to revive his limp curls and inspects the heavy bags under his eyes, idly griping about the limits of supernatural healing.

Isaac’s reflection appears over Grayson’s shoulder.

“See,” they say, “you look like a million bucks.”

For a long, silent moment, they just gaze at their reflections together, one dead-eyed and miserable with a face full of blood-colored snarls, the other kind-eyed and pinched with concern beneath an overgrown buzz cut that’s just starting to curl at the ends.

Then Grayson grumps, as if Isaac hadn’t spoken, “I probably always look this bad, too. Shit deal, being a bloodthirsty bottom-feeder and still having to look yourself in the eyes every day.”

Isaac keeps quiet and nods as they absorb this perspective and chew it over. They know what they want to say.

What they say instead is, “I’m pretty sure the no reflection thing is just an old myth. Something vampires in the past wished was true, or like a running in-joke that got away from itself, or something.”

Grayson’s reflection looks pensive now, too, though still not very happy about it. He chews his lip.

“Or something humans came up with, to make us sound more dangerous and mysterious. Make us scarier by abstracting from our humanity.” Isaac shrugs. “Or for all we know, maybe it used to be true. I tried to research it once, but I didn’t find anything conclusive.”

Grayson is chewing his knuckle now, and Isaac starts to get the impression he regrets leaving his cigarettes across the room. He isn’t thinking of them, though; his eyes are unfocused, his movements unchecked as he sinks tentatively into his feelings. After expending all his energy desperately avoiding the cold smack of old pain, he finds it surprisingly tepid, not a shock but a relief after a marathon with terror hot on his heels.

“Have you ever…” Grayson swallows dryly. “Have you ever had someone you really care about just… completely fuck you up, more than you ever thought anyone could?” He keeps his voice even, and his heavy-lidded eyes glaze over the vanity’s jumbled contents. “And then drop you like trash. It’s like – never mind that I broke my entire life all at once, how am I—?”

His eyes are starting to water. Isaac wants to put a comforting hand on his shoulder, but they’re reluctant to risk any disturbance to Grayson’s process now that the wheels are turning.

“When you found – saw me playing, in the rain, it was the anniversary of when I last saw her. That’s why I was…” He sniffs sharply, knuckles tight on the chipped edge of the desk. “I pretty much ran as far as I could, as fast as I could. To get away. And I’m still terrified of seeing her, everywhere I go.” His voice starts to crack. “And I didn’t want to leave. I still miss her all the time. I don’t know how to stop.”

Still on their feet, Isaac wraps their arms around Grayson’s shoulders, lays a soothingly cool hand on the back of his neck, and lets him cry and cry what he can’t put into words into their chest instead. They don’t try to comfort him yet, just hold him steady, and feel every sob shaking the breath out of him, and try to share some of his pain. He clings to them the whole time, letting go only to wipe his nose with the sleeve of his borrowed shirt, and just from the strength of his grip Isaac gets the uneasy sense it’s been a very long time since anyone touched Grayson kindly. They rub his back gently as he wails.

“It’s alright,” they murmur once he starts to quiet down. “You’re not there any more.”


End file.
